


Wolf

by orphan_account



Category: VIXX
Genre: I'm so sorry please forgive the old me I promise I'm not like this anymore, Kidnapping, M/M, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 11:48:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5333021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hongbin takes a kid -- not his first, of course -- and finds that this time, he may just have met his match.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> something i started a very, very long time ago without any idea of how or when i'd finish it. my thanks (as always) to riley for sitting with me throughout the whole process. crossposted from my lj.

Hongbin hadn't meant for it to come this far, he contemplated as he pushed his bangs back from his sweat-slicked forehead and pushed his cock so far into the boy he held beneath him that he was pretty sure the little shit can feel the tip leaking into his guts.

He really hadn't meant to tear into the kid like this, nor had he meant to make a complete mess of himself, lose complete control. At least, he told himself he hadn't, despite his long, thick fingers wrapped around tense wrists as he pressed the boy's face into the mattress, his cock twitching at the sound of muffled cries of 'stop' and 'help' and, most of all, 'please'. He swears to all things good and holy that he could cum just from hearing those little pleas from the ragged throat of his captor. In fact, he almost has on multiple occasions, though he's stopped himself because he doesn't want the boy's pretty face to light up with hope at the thought that, perhaps, finding him attractive will make Hongbin want to let him go.

But no, Hongbin smirks, silent even as he's blowing his load deep inside the boy, his little plaything, his sweet, beautiful angel Sanghyuk. He'll never let this go, he decides, flipping the boy over and raking fingernails across the expanse of his slim chest, digging deep crescent moons into his hipbones, hoping for blood so that he can know he’s left his mark forever.

* * *

It had started on a fine day in spring, with the sun burning high in the sky. He had spotted the boy on the way home from... well, it appeared to be school, but one could never tell these days, could they? Hongbin had sat, legs crossed, nestled into a park bench, pretending to read from behind thick sunglasses and occasionally tugging his light jacket tighter around his frame.

Sanghyuk, as Hongbin quickly learned his name was as he listened to the boy's friends call to him from across the street, had the most charming smile Hongbin had ever seen, the kind that would light up towns if given the power, the kind that made Hongbin's heart quicken under his ribs in an attempt to get out and see for itself. He had known as soon as he'd heard the boy speak, voice cracking with an attempt to keep in laughter, that he would, eventually, have to take him and keep him.

It was at that conclusion that his heart's racing became unsteady, his breathing hitched, and he knew he had to be alone before he made a mess of the situation.

Still, even as he went home, splayed out on his mattress and pumped away at his erection with thoughts of burying himself deep in that boy's throat, he was planning all the while.

* * *

Sanghyuk smelled of springtime when Hongbin had first brought him home, of flowers and allergens and a happiness that fades away as quickly as the balmy temperatures of the season do. He'd fought hard as Hongbin had dragged him into the house, kicking and screaming and even attempting to bite a few times, but to no avail -- he was young and perhaps a little too frail to stave off the inevitable. Hongbin had earned more than his fair share of bruises trying to encourage cooperation, though, he noted as he stared at his skin in a mirror late that morning, the sun spilling in through the blinds and warming the floorboards of his house.

It no longer mattered that he had liked Sanghyuk out in the world, he knew as he tugged at his hair, not breaking eye contact with his reflection. It no longer mattered that the boy -- his boy now, he thought with the ghost of a smile gracing his lips -- had once had friends or family or maybe even a girlfriend who would wait for him until her heart burst with affection and longing and horrible loneliness. It no longer mattered that Sanghyuk had been happy in his old life; he would learn to like his new one.

* * *

Sanghyuk wasn’t the first one, of course.

It wasn’t that Hongbin made a habit of collecting pretty boys he found on the street. He didn’t snatch up everyone he saw.

Just the ones that needed to be kept, the ones who were too beautiful for their own good, the ones who screamed out from the core of their being to the outer edges of their very existences. And Hongbin, out of the goodness of his soul, was more than eager to oblige them their demands, taking those who needed to be taught.

There had been Hakyeon, kissed by the sun, far too talkative for anyone to genuinely enjoy being around him. He’d met his end to a glass full of poison and ended up scattered among the hills of the distant countryside, all for talking too much. But oh, how lovely he’d looked, back arched, long legs wrapped around Hongbin’s waist, fingers tight in his hair.

Jaehwan had been purposeful, self-conscious, always watching his movements. Hongbin always knew when he would try to escape, because he would stop interacting for the whole day. He was strangled to death, and Hongbin didn’t miss his smile when he was gone. Again, scattered, a mess of limbs. Hongbin caught himself gazing at that photograph more often than the others.

The last one had been Wonshik, and Hongbin had liked him the most. He was quiet, sensitive, an artist, a musician, someone who chose not to have friends so it didn’t interfere with his work. He had lasted the longest, and his broad face had looked beautiful cupped between Hongbin’s palms. But eventually he, too, wanted to leave, tried to escape. Hongbin hadn’t wanted to kill him, but he’d attempted to run out the door, and Hongbin had clubbed him over the head with a heavy piece of pottery, shattering the clay bowl and Wonshik’s skull in one fell blow.

No one had ever lasted very long, though -- no longer than a month, at least in Wonshik’s case. Not long enough to be worth keeping, anyhow, and those with weak constitutions were not exactly worthy of being kept, not in the ways they wanted -- no, needed to be.

He had done well enough with them, he’d thought as he buried each one out in the country, far enough away that no one would think to go looking for them, their bodies in pieces, scattered amongst various plastic bags.

It’s just that his well enough hadn’t been enough to make them love him.

* * *

“Where am I…?”

The voice disturbed Hongbin’s contented silence as he sat over the newspaper and sipped on a quickly-chilling cup of tea; he drew in a deep breath and whirled around to face Sanghyuk as he attempted to climb from the couch, limbs limp noodles, face a mask of disorientation and discontent as the memories seemed to come rushing back.

“You’re awake,” Hongbin intoned with a grin, elated that he hadn’t caused permanent damage to his ward. He took a hesitant step towards the languid form of the boy, one hand raised, the other covering his mouth, then turned back almost immediately, hunching his shoulders, mumbling to himself.

“You didn’t answer my question…” Sanghyuk tilted his head, confused, lips pursing into something that might be comparable to a pout. There’s an uneasy quiet between the both of them now as the both of them remain motionless, frozen in a moment.

“You belong to me now,” Hongbin claimed, voice a strained groan as he attempted (and failed) to contain his glee at the mere idea. He fisted his hands in the hem of his shirt, staring at a spot on the floorboards between his feet, watching his toes curl open and closed out of his periphery. He tried to ignore the way his knuckles twitched, the way his muscles tightened in anticipation of something awful, of having to contain some kind of situation, subdue the boy by force.

It had never scared him how much he enjoyed that part. He swallowed thickly, excited for the opportunity.

And Sanghyuk must have been exhausted, because he didn’t even have the good grace to scream or pretend to be distraught by the fact that he was apparently property at this point. He merely flopped back onto the couch, looking too weak to fight back.

Hongbin felt his nerves catch fire under his skin; his brain lit up, neon, suspicious of anything the boy did after that point. Or, at least, he would have been, had Sanghyuk not rolled right over and gone back to sleep, snoring softly into the threadbare material of the couch.

This would not do.

Sighing softly, Hongbin made his way to the couch where the boy was curling into himself, one arm wrapping lazily around his knees. He sat on the edge, near Sanghyuk’s knees, ran two fingers across the muscle of his calf, watched as it tensed up. His gaze flickered up to watch for signs of stirring; when he noticed none he continued on, the rough pads of his fingers drawing circles on the back of Sanghyuk’s knee. Still no life.

Hongbin growled, low in his throat, and moved in closer, taking the boy by the shoulders and lifting him up, not paying any mind to the obvious dizziness on his face, the confusion etched into his brow, the unseemly pull of his lips over his teeth as he bared them in a defensive snarl. “Did I say you could go back to sleep…?” he whispered, dangerously close to losing it and inciting physical violence -- but no, that would not do either, he despaired, thinking of the exact kind of harm he could do that lovely face. 

His cock jumped to life at the thought of covering his neck in fingerprint-shaped bruises, and that was effectively the end of the idea of self-restraint.

Groaning loudly he shoved the boy back into the couch cushions, tearing at his clothes with greedy, grasping fingers that threatened to scratch and mar otherwise beautiful, perfect skin. Sanghyuk, of course, was no help, resisting every possible moment, pressing his elbows into his own sides, digging them in at the curves of his ribcage in an effort to at least retain some vague semblance of dignity about him. But Hongbin was having absolutely none of that, and so he took Sanghyuk’s wrists in one hand, pinned them over his head, fingertips sure to leave a bruise from how tightly he held on.

“Do as I say,” Hongbin mumbled, still commanding, as he pressed his mouth against the soft flesh of Sanghyuk’s stomach, “and this will go so much easier for you.” Then he sunk his teeth into the skin there, and Sanghyuk cried out, though in pain or surprise, Hongbin could neither discern nor care. He felt fingers in his hair, pulling harshly at his locks, trying to plead with him to stop, and yet he felt absolutely no reason to do anything but continue forth with his plan.

With rough hands he pulled at the button on Sanghyuk’s uniform pants, uncaring as to whether or not he popped the button off save for the fact that he would really hate catching it in the eye. He wasn’t mindful, not in the way that a real lover might be, but he wasn’t lacking in any kind of gentleness as he tugged the khakis down the younger’s thighs, briefs with them. His gaze flickered up to the boy’s face; it was scrunched up in disbelief and a distinct lack of wanting, eyes screwed shut, large and handsome nose wrinkled.

Sighing with just a hint of frustration, Hongbin grazed comforting fingertips along the line of Sanghyuk’s hip, feeling the bone there, making himself familiar and the other comfortable. He felt the tension slowly drain from the muscles of Sanghyuk’s thighs, and when he was calm and sure not to try and violently yank Hongbin away from his task (not to mention half-hard just from the sparse physical contact and tension between the both of them), Hongbin set to his work.

“What are you --” And Sanghyuk’s question was cut off by a decidedly loud moan, he’s staring down at Hongbin with a look of intense incredulity. Were Hongbin’s mouth not full, lips wrapped around the head of Sanghyuk’s cock and offering up an impressive suck, he would have more than likely pointed out that it was obvious what he was doing. So instead Hongbin reached down, took Sanghyuk’s hand and placed it atop his head, encouraging the boy to enjoy himself as well as he could for what was apparently his first blowjob, then hollowed his cheeks and started to take more into his mouth.

Judging by how foreign the sounds, the vowels and consonants, were as they rattled off from the back of Sanghyuk’s throat, the boy has never really sworn before. Or had cause to do so. At least that’s one accomplishment down.

Hongbin didn’t even get Sanghyuk’s dick all the way down his throat before the kid comes with only so much as a grunt of warning. Displeased entirely, Hongbin’s jaw fell completely slack, and he looked up at the younger’s face, studying him. Past the intense mortification there was a tiny grain of self-satisfaction, the kind that only ever came with, well, coming, and Hongbin, no matter how upset he was that he didn’t get to at least somewhat enjoy the experience, understood that much, at the very least. Raising his brows, he leaned back, folding his arms over his chest and waiting.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Sanghyuk asked, all breathless and flush, mouth twisted into an ugly sort of grimace; he spoke through his teeth, like he was willing to jump at any minute, and the tension in his frame suggested that the plan in his mind was to do just that. His inability to keep his intentions masked did nothing except set Hongbin on edge, fingers curling around the ugly, worn-out fabric of the couch.

“Because I’m trying to figure out how to teach you not to do that anymore.” Hongbin spoke very carefully, the words tasting kind of sour as they passed over the tip of his tongue and between his lips. “You’re going to be with me for a very long time, after all.”

There was a silence, and a look of recognition that passed over Sanghyuk’s features.

Then the boy burst into tears, and Hongbin, despite his incredible self-control when it came to his own emotions, grinned, knowing in his heart of hearts that it had actually begun.

* * *

When Sanghyuk had gone back to sleep on the couch, his arms wrapped around his knees and his face stained with tears that seemed unrelenting as they’d happened, Hongbin crept into his bedroom. He seated himself on the floor at the end of his bed, drew up the corner of his blanket and pulled out a box. The top was coated in dust, and it greyed out the colours on the lid, so he carefully traced lines in the greasy substance, writing names, writing contents before wiping his palm across the surface, effectively erasing everything.

Then he lifted the lid off the box, brow furrowed in something that would have been like longing if he actually missed the people inside. He took out photographs -- some polaroid, some developed in the darkroom he’d made out of his spare bedroom -- and studied them, one by one, wondering what had made the boys depicted in them so special that he’d needed to take them and make them his own.

Hakyeon, who had the dumbest smile and limbs that went on for days and could bend in ways that Hongbin had never thought possible for a human being -- he’d been the most stable, emotionally speaking, before getting taken. He’d broken the fastest, curling into a ball and running fingers through fried crimson hair and cursing the earth for putting him in such a position as to end up stuck with a captor like Hongbin. He’d cried the most, face pressed to his knees, chin dug into his thighs. He’d been Hongbin’s first, and the hardest to get rid of in the end, but not because Hongbin had been particularly attached to him so much as the fact that he tried to fight like a tiger and in the end the only reason he could be disposed of was that Hongbin managed to knock him out with one of his old, broken-down cameras, one he didn’t use anymore. Hongbin stared down at his photograph, marked with his name, and seeing that stupid grin on the guy’s face brought the taste of his lips to the tip of Hongbin’s tongue. He put this one back in the box first.

* * *

Sanghyuk’s first attempt to escape came in the middle of the night, three nights after Hongbin had taken him. He obviously wasn’t the most clever boy, because he somehow managed to crash into the coffee table as he made for the door, waking Hongbin, who bolted upright in his bed and came out quicker than Sanghyuk could manage to regain his balance and try again.

“Where are you going?” Hongbin asked quietly, crossing the small space between his hallway and the front door to block the exit. “Did I say that you could leave?” He took Sanghyuk’s wrist in his fingers, held tight, so tight that he could hear the hiss of pain and disgust that Sanghyuk shoved out from between his teeth. He supposed he should have felt bad for hurting his new toy, but he really didn’t care too much about pain, especially when the boy was obviously asking to be punished.

“I’m leaving,” Sanghyuk intoned, neutral as he could be despite the fact that his expression was wild with embarrassment and a need to escape. “You don’t need to worry, I won’t tell anyone that this happened, I just need to --”

Tutting and shaking his head, Hongbin pulled Sanghyuk to him, cautious, not necessarily afraid to be hurt but not wanting to give the younger a chance he didn’t deserve to take. Then he flipped them, pressed Sanghyuk’s back against the door, hands dropping to his hips and fingers latching onto the slight curve of them. Their faces were inches apart, and Hongbin didn’t dare speak above a whisper.

“Don’t you trust me?” He watched the nervous bob of Sanghyuk’s adam’s apple, waited for him as he slowly shook his head. “I’ve been good to you. I haven’t hurt you, even though you’ve been asking for it for days now. I even made you come a couple times...and people who aren’t to be trusted wouldn’t do that for you, you know.”

“But you won’t let me leave,” Sanghyuk all but whined, brows lilting upwards sadly, and for a moment Hongbin was reminded that he had taken a high school boy, barely anything more than a child. Even still, he felt no remorse, just shoved the both of them together, his nails digging into Sanghyuk’s flesh.

“I can’t let you go,” Hongbin murmured, gaze low, unable to make eye contact in this moment because he knew he might have gotten weak temporarily, could potentially be coerced into letting the kid leave. “I can’t. You haven’t learned anything yet.”

“I have a life out there. I have a family. People who’ll be looking for me. Don’t you think they’re going to notice--”

“No one noticed you before, Sanghyuk,” and the words were vitriolic, corrosive acid spilling from between Hongbin’s lips. “Do you know how long I watched you before I brought you here? How many days I saw you try and get in with your friends, the ones who barely even acknowledged your existence?” His voice rose in tone; the column of his throat trembled with intensity, and he lifted his eyes, praying for the chance to see that he was making an effect. “Not one of them actually remembered you when they went home at night. That’s just how people are. But I… I loved you so long before I took you. So very long. And I wanted you to know that even if no one else ever did, I would notice you.”

Sanghyuk’s lower lip trembled; he appeared ready to burst into tears, but that only made Hongbin feel even stronger in his resolve. “Your parents didn’t notice you, either, did they, Hyukkie,” he continued on, cooing now, eyes narrowed and lips pushed out. “They didn’t pay any attention to you at all. That’s why you tried so hard with everyone else when I saw you, is because at least if they saw you it wouldn’t be because they absolutely had to.”

“You’re lying…” The accusation was soft, and if Hongbin didn’t know any better he would swear that the boy hadn’t actually said it, that it was all in his mind. “You don’t know the first thing about me.” He didn’t sound too sure of his own convictions, though, which made Hongbin smile, bask in the revelation that he had made a far better choice than even he could have guessed.

“I know more about you than you will ever know about yourself.” And just like that Hongbin’s hands were wrapped around Sanghyuk’s wrists again, tugging him in the direction of the bedroom. “Tonight, you sleep with me.” After fulfilling a penance, of course, he added silently, ignoring the way his dick twitched to life as the image of those full lips around it flashed through his mind, brief but all too intrusive.

He ignored the way Sanghyuk tried to wriggle out of his grasp, warning him with murmurs and fingernails that fighting back was not the best option, not tonight.

* * *

“Do you really think no one noticed me…?” Sanghyuk asked one day, curled in on himself in the center of Hongbin’s bed as Hongbin hung photographs over his windows, intent on sun-bleaching them. The kid had one elbow hooked under his knees and his chin tucked into his chest and his voice was wavering with uncertainty, with emotion, with things that Hongbin hadn’t really felt before, or at least not in recent enough memory to be cognisant of having felt that way.

“I thought I was wrong,” Hongbin countered, amused, hanging a photo from a line of thick twine with a clothespin. “Are you admitting that I’m not, or are you just asking my opinion?”

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Sanghyuk mutters, glowering evident in his voice, so much so that Hongbin didn’t even feel it necessary to turn and see what he was doing. “You’re a sick fuck, thinking that I deserved to get taken because you thought no one knew I existed.”

“You shouldn’t curse, Hyukkie, it’s not…” And here Hongbin pursed his lips, putting the back of his hand to his forehead and wiping the thin sheen of sweat from his skin. “It’s not very much like you.”

“How would you know? You haven’t tried to find out what I’m like at all, you just fuck me when you’re bored and I’m not asleep and spend the rest of the time ignoring me.” He sounded plain bitter, then, older and more jaded than his years could possibly explain. “You’re… you’re just the same as everyone else.”

“I’m not ignoring you, I’m learning about you.”

“What have you learned, then, since you’re so observant.”

Hongbin finally turned on his heel, sat himself down on the corner of his bed, ghosting fingers across the knob of Sanghyuk’s knee. “I know that you hate it here. And that you get frustrated very easily, and when you do you whisper to yourself even though you know I’m right here and can probably hear you. I know that you can sing, and you sing when you think I’m asleep. I haven’t figured out why, though.”

“Isn’t that the great mystery?” Sanghyuk wondered aloud, and Hongbin laughed, exposing his dimple with his smile and catching the boy’s interested gaze without even meaning to do so.

“And now I know you’re a lot smarter than most people would have given you credit for, out there,” Hongbin concluded, his smile falling as he surveyed the other’s face, waiting to see any traces of dissatisfaction, any sign that he might not be buying into this as much as he seemed to be.

“...You make sense, sometimes,” Sanghyuk pointed out with a shrug, going back into his previous fetal position. “But I really do hate it here, and I miss my family, and I miss the sun.”

“Your family doesn’t miss you,” Hongbin reminded him, keeping away from the cheer that threatened to creep into his words -- just because he had a pet who was his and his alone doesn’t mean that pet wanted to belong to his owner. “I’ve been watching the news lately, reading the newspapers and everything. No one’s even looking. There hasn’t been any press for your disappearance at all.” He paused, tapping a finger at the corner of his mouth. “You’d think they might have tried.”

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you,” Sanghyuk agreed, though his tone betrayed no such confidence in the idea.

They stayed in silence, then, and as something that could be taken as an apology, Hongbin ordered them takeaway for dinner. “Pizza,” he noted aloud as they ate, Sanghyuk giving him the strangest of looks. “You told one of those friends that it was your favourite.”

Sanghyuk’s face changed immediately at the mention of pizza, and Hongbin couldn’t really afford it, not today anyhow, but he’d have done anything to see that precious expression. It meant he was winning, and a victory is something he really needed right then.

* * *

When the nights came Hongbin took dark, grainy photos of Sanghyuk asleep in the center of his bed, all folded in on himself and worn out from crying, from being fucked so mercilessly, from wanting so badly to escape. He imagined that Sanghyuk was dead, that the Polaroids were just the remnants he’d chosen to keep of the boy before taking him out into the country and being rid of him. He imagined that he would add these beautiful photographs to his collection, and that he would be done, and that he would never need another pet after being rid of Sanghyuk, that all the others had just been mistakes and this would be the one to set him straight.

It made him hard all over again, and often times he had to excuse himself to the bathroom, speaking to empty air as he went to jerk himself off, his back to the mirror as he sat on the sink.

After a long few hours, he crawled into bed with his baby, arms wrapped around him, pulling him in close and breathing in deep the scent of his hair, a mingle of damp sweat and the shampoo he’d been using since arriving at Hongbin’s place a few weeks prior. And Hongbin couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to sleep next to the dead one last time.

But then Sanghyuk woke up in the morning, wanting food, wanting attention, wanting everything Hongbin had to give -- which, truth be told, wasn’t much -- and Hongbin wondered how much longer he would keep this one before getting rid of him, as well.

Each morning Hongbin made himself breakfast, feeding his charge the scraps of whatever’s left over, making sure he’s fed just enough to keep him hungry. Then they go to bed, spending the morning exploring one another’s bodies, Hongbin doing most of the work with Sanghyuk laying back, head against the single pillow in the bed. At this point his hair was getting a little long -- Hongbin made note one morning that he would have to cut it at some time in the near future -- and it laid across the pillow prettily, to the point that sometimes Hongbin wound it around the tip of his finger in the throes of their sex, just to see the wince cross Sanghyuk’s face.

He wasn’t in love -- Hongbin didn’t believe in love, not the kind one saw in movies or heard about in sappy pop songs on the radio -- but he definitely felt some kind of strange affection for the boy, the more time he spent with him. And he could tell that Sanghyuk felt something of the same, judging by the way he would come into Hongbin’s bed in the middle of the night and curl around him, never holding him the way a lover might but still nestled against him all the same, using his chest for an uncomfortable sort of pillow.

For once, he didn’t want it to be over. Over time, the idea of killing him and being rid of him didn’t make Hongbin hard anymore, instead made him a little lonesome, a lot longing.

But if he didn’t kill him… the alternatives weren’t pretty. He couldn’t let Sanghyuk go; after all he’s just a loudmouthed kid, would probably tell everyone where he’d been, would have to offer some sort of explanation as to his disappearance for a month, now. He could always keep him, but...what happened when he tired of having someone around? Hongbin was an anti-social creature by nature, lived with the constant urge to rid himself of everyone he possibly could. It was part of the reason why he killed his pets after a short time.

He wasn’t tired of Sanghyuk, not yet. But eventually he would be. He just knew it.

These were the thoughts that kept him up late at night, watching Sanghyuk sleep next to him, his lips pursed into a thin line.

He’d have to do something, and soon. What it was he had to do, he had no idea.

* * *

Sanghyuk was starting to get cute, bratty with his affections when Hongbin realised what the ultimate outcome had to be. He had a habit of waking up early in the morning, before Hongbin, probably a habit leftover from years of going to school. One morning when he did this, he ended up perched on Hongbin’s chest, straddling him, none too affectionately, instead choosing to grind his weight down on the elder’s ribs. 

“The hell are you doing,” Hongbin growled through the haze of sleep that was still settled in over his eyes. “You’re hurting me.”

“I’ve decided something,” Sanghyuk says, reaching forward and cupping Hongbin’s cheeks in his palms. “You were probably right. I didn’t have friends. Everyone thought I was just some kind of nerd. They were annoyed anytime I was around. My parents are divorced, too, and they spent a lot of time arguing over what to do with me. I have older sisters, and I’d like to think that they would’ve noticed I was gone, but...I don’t know, I guess not. So I want to stay with you. You want me, don’t you?”

Hongbin woke right up after that. “You want to stay with me?” The idea itself is repellant, someone wanting him, someone wanting his affections, his attentions, to stay in his broken-down house as a part of his broken-down life. “You _want_ to stay with me?”

Sanghyuk smiled and pressed a kiss to the line of Hongbin’s brow. “It’d be better than going home. And you like me, and we have sex all the time, and you take good care of me. Better than my family.”

Hongbin scowled, pushed Sanghyuk away. “If you _want_ to stay with me,” he said flatly, “then I’m not doing everything in my power to keep you how I want to.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, you fuckin’ hurt. You suck. I haven’t seen the sun in a month and a half, and you don’t have TV, and I can’t remember the last time I didn’t wake up covered in bruises. But if the alternative is out there, with them?...I think I’ll take my chances with you.”

* * *

It was a couple weeks later when the news finally got out, the stacks of papers that have been piling up for a month and a half revealing the truth. Sanghyuk has been the subject of a manhunt since his disappearance back in May, and the media coverage has slowed considerably since then. It made Hongbin’s life difficult in the sense that he had to dig through weeks’ worth of newspapers to find the ones where Sanghyuk’s photo or his parents or his sister were on the front cover. He clipped a couple articles, burned the rest, making sure Sanghyuk never saw them.

When he came inside from burning the papers -- a strange sight in the dead of summer, smoke rising from his backyard, tongues of flame rising from a barrel in the dead-center of it -- Sanghyuk didn’t seem too concerned with what he’d been doing. Instead he’d chosen to entertain himself with one of the few fiction novels Hongbin had laying around. He stayed in his spot on Hongbin’s overstuffed couch; it smelled vaguely of mothballs and old cigarette smoke, and Hongbin couldn’t figure out for the life of him why it was the boy’s favourite place to just laze about.

“What happened back there?” he asked, all indifference, as if he couldn’t care less about the fire in Hongbin’s backyard.

“Burning papers.” For some reason, Hongbin felt...odd lying to the boy. Despite the nature of their relationship thus far, he had never lied once before, and doing so now was uncomfortable, as if he’d have something to maintain in the future. So he decided to tell the truth. “Your picture was in some of them. I guess I was wrong.”

If he really wanted to stay, it wouldn’t matter.

But Sanghyuk jumped up, glancing around as if he were some wild animal stricken with panic at being attacked. “My...my family is looking for me?” he demands slowly, eyes going wide, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “How could you know that the whole time and not tell me?”

“I didn’t know the whole time.” Hongbin frowned, took a seat at the kitchen table, reaching over and closing the curtain in case someone heard the commotion coming from Sanghyuk’s sudden outburst. “I just found out. It’s like you tell me all the time, I don’t have a television. I don’t read the newspaper, just keep it for the wintertime. There was a little article about you in it yesterday. So what? You said yourself you wanted to stay with me.”

Sanghyuk paused, unsure as to how to counter that logic. He had, after all, said as much.

“I love you,” Hongbin said, half-truth, half-fiction. “Stay with me. I’ll treat you better than those people out in the world. I order you pizza. I suck your cock when you’re feeling down. I let you sleep in my bed.”

“I had a boyfriend out there, you know,” and Hongbin’s suspicions were confirmed, much to his chagrin. “He wasn’t like you. He didn’t care about looking after me, but he was older, and he was good to me. He said...he said I could live with him, when I was a little older.” 

“What the hell does that have to do with me,” Hongbin deadpanned.

“You remind me of him, a little. You kiss like he did.”

Hongbin stalked off to his bedroom, and Sanghyuk did not bother to follow, knowing that there was a tension between them just then that couldn’t be broken, not yet.

* * *

That’s how they reached critical mass, so to speak, with Hongbin’s hands wrapped tight around Sanghyuk’s throat, his cock buried deep inside the boy’s ass, deep enough that he was sure the kid could feel the tip of it leaking into his guts. There were bruises blooming at the tender skin of Sanghyuk’s wrists, and blood welling up from bite wounds at his collarbone and all across his chest.

Sanghyuk’s face turned a lovely shade of red under Hongbin’s ministrations, and then deep purple, and Hongbin knew when to let go, he just didn’t care, let go at the last possible minute. He didn’t want to kill Sanghyuk -- a true first for him -- just wanted to scare him a little, make him consider the possibilities, wonder if maybe this wasn’t the worst choice he’d ever made.

He finished with Sanghyuk still passed out, limp beneath him, and climbs off, his cock still buried inside the boy as he curled up beside him, arms wrapped around his middle, pulling them close together. Sanghyuk was still breathing.

It was exhilarating, leaving him alive, exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.

The morning would bring results, and maybe Sanghyuk would want to leave, knowing that Hongbin would continue to hurt him or knowing that his family was out there looking for him, but one way or the other, Hongbin had to know.

* * *

They woke early the next morning, both of them, Hongbin having barely slept throughout the night, nervous about the way his experiment had gone. But Sanghyuk cuddled up to him the same way he did every morning. The only difference was the bruises, deep blue and purple, ringing the pale column of his throat, which, in honesty, made Hongbin want to do it to him all over again, just for the marks, for the feeling of Sanghyuk becoming dead weight under him.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sanghyuk said with some finality to his tone. “It doesn’t matter, what matters is us.”

A pause, and then:

“I love you.”

And Hongbin was glad that Sanghyuk had given up the idea that things would be better with freedom. He was more than happy to keep this pet, just this once. 

He’d do away with him eventually, after all. Now just wasn’t the time.

“I love you, too.”

They went back to sleep, wrapped in each other’s arms.


End file.
